Ode To The DC Punk Scene
July 19, 2025
Written by editor Alec Rodamilans
As the editor of Afraid0fAsteroids I wanted to take a moment to reflect on where it all begun. Afraid0fAsteroids was founded on the day that I watched a documentary with my dad on the Washington D.I.Y punk scene while visiting my uncle in Alberta and trying to kill time. This documentary which I watched at the age of 8 had a much bigger impact on me than I realized, both on my music taste but more importantly on my personality, it entitled the value of Doing It Yourself.
When I began to read philosophy and write it, I realized that there are no spaces to promote philosophical thought in Canadian universities, of course every university has a philosophy club, or some journal which has been picking up dust but none had a consistent student led magazine. The conversation, thoughts and writing were there however, my peers, friends, myself and even people that I inherently disagree with all have valid ideas that must be heard and confronted in a positive or negative light, and yet there was no place to do this. There was no stepping stone for new thinkers to put their work to light, out of this predicament Afraid0fAsteroids was born. Learning and being shaped by the D.I.Y ethics of D.C Punk bands like Minor Threat, Black Flag, Bad Brains and Marginal Man represented).
Afraid0fAsteroids stands for the continuation of the ideals of these bands or in a more philosophical sense of the late great David Graeber who often spoke about direct action. The same way that Graebers says that direct action is the act of not waiting for someone to fix something and instead you fixing it yourself; We will not wait for someone to create a space for us to share our ideas, for someone to push us to both leave and record our impact on the current state of Canada and the globe and to give us a space to be right, wrong and something in between. Afraid0fAsteroids might be a Minor Threat today, but it is a threat that is going nowhere for a long time. We are proud to be the primary D.I.Y intellectual magazine and Canada and would like to thank everyone who takes the time to read, write or contribute to the magazine! (this is for afraidofasteroids an open letter)